


Not A Misery Thing

by LibKat



Series: Jaime/Brienne Week 2019 [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, But they weren't siblings, Car Accident, F/M, JB Week 2019, Jaime and Brienne Appreciation Week 2019, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-07 19:49:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20981408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibKat/pseuds/LibKat
Summary: Successful author Jaime Lannister has a car accident in the Mountains of the Moon after finishing the latest book in his best selling series.  But don't worry.  He's rescued by a mysterious woman and taken to her lonely cabin in the woods.





	Not A Misery Thing

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for missing getting this and the fics for days 6 & 7 up during JB Week. I had a flare-up of my RSI and needed to take a break from typing and then things got weird in Northern California with possible power shutoffs. I’ll be trying to finish up this week and then get to the next chapters of Earth and Air.
> 
> Many thanks to all who’ve commented on my first 4 JB Week fics. I’ll start responding to comments this weekend.
> 
> The idea for this fic comes from a classic moment of Supernatural.
> 
> Disclaimer: A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones and these characters belong to a whole bunch of people who are not me. I will return them undamaged when I am finished playing with them.

JB Week 2019

Day 5 – Winter

Not A Misery Thing

Had gravity increased, or had he celebrated too hard last night?

Jaime sent orders to his eyelids to open, and one of them failed to respond. The one that did was heavier than the top weight he’d managed to lift at his last workout.

Jaime sent more commands to other parts of his body, and the result was … PAIN! He hadn’t ever had a hangover this bad, not even at college. Not even in the wake of breakup number 129, the breakup that stuck.

Jaime forced his eye to focus. The timbered ceiling overhead was nothing like his elegant suite at the Eyrie Resort and Spa. The sheets he was lying on were definitely not thousand count Mereenese cotton, and the single pillow beneath his head was anything but goosedown.

Where the fuck was he? 

Jaime was a discriminating man. He would not have gotten drunk last night and let himself be taken home by some rustic hill tribeswoman who ravished him into insensibility.

If that hadn’t happened, what had?

He couldn’t move without pain, so Jaime tried to call out in hopes that someone would come and explain things to him. But what he meant to be a full-throated roar, came out as a weak, mewling sound.

It must have been enough, though. He heard heavy footsteps coming from beyond the closed door. 

Maybe he hadn’t been ravished by a hill tribeswoman, but a tribes_man_.

The door opened. Jaime gulped, as a large figure stood backlit by the light from a hallway. Then the figure came into the room.

Well, it was a woman, but only just.

To call her face homely would be a compliment. She might be taller and broader than Jaime himself. She wore baggy sweatpants and a heavy sweater. Any female shape that she might have was shrouded in folds of fabric. 

She leaned down over him and peered into his single open eye. Blue filled his vision. Blue as the sea on a clear, calm day. Her eyes were so beautiful that it almost made up for her other mismatched features.

“Mr. Lannister. Mr. Lannister, are you awake?” The woman’s voice was gentle. The low tone stroked along his firing nerve endings like the brush of a flower petal.

Jaime tried to speak again, and another groan came out.

“It’s all right, Mr. Lannister. You were in an accident. I can’t get you to the nearest hospital because of the blizzard, but I have some medical training. Rest. You’ll feel better for it.”

A hand, gentle as her voice, stroked Jaime’s forehead. His one working eyelid was too heavy for him to continue to hold open. The last thought he had was, “What accident?”

***

The rustic room was a bit brighter the next time Jaime woke up, though much colder. The pain was closer, harder to suppress, as his body tried to shiver. Jaime heard himself give a loud groan. One eye opened easily, but he fought with tight, swollen flesh to raise the other lid. He must have one hells of a shiner. 

Before he could try to make another sound, he heard the heavy footsteps of his hostess again. As the door to the bedroom opened, a draft of cold air hit Jaime in the face, and the woman closed the door quickly behind her. She’d added at least one more layer to the rag bin of garments covering her.

“The generator is down, Mr. Lannister. I’ll need to build a fire in here to keep you warm before I do anything else.”

She crouched before a wood stove in one corner of the room and arranged kindling before striking a match. As the flame grew, she fed several pieces of wood to it one by one. Once it was blazing, she closed the grate and turned back to look at Jaime.

“Now, Mr. Lannister, I’m sure you have a lot of questions, but I’d like to examine your injuries before we get to that. I’ll explain what is wrong with you as I go.”

Jaime gave a rusty chuckle and said roughly, “According to my ex, that might take all day. It is day, isn’t it.”

“That’s a question, Mr. Lannister,” the woman said as she raised the blankets on the side of the bed. Jaime thought that her lips might have twitched a bit in amusement before she continued, “but yes, it is day. The snow is still coming down and it’s keeping the light very dim.”

She pressed lightly on Jaime’s ribs, and he gasped out his next words.

“Your name?” After a couple shallow breaths, he continued, “You know mine apparently.”

“Tarth, Brienne Tarth,” she answered. She moved farther down to the blanket covering Jaime’s legs. “I’m sorry. This is going to hurt.”

The room went white as she did something to Jaime’s left leg that he couldn’t see.

“You have a fracture of your lower leg, several broken ribs, and your right hand took the brunt of the airbag when it deployed. It has sustained significant damage. Along with some cuts, bruises, and abrasions, you’re rather a dog’s breakfast right now. I was in touch with the trauma center in Darry before I lost reception. I’ve followed their instructions as well as I can to immobilize the fractures. Thankfully, I have an extensive first aid kit here. I was able to get you hydrated, but I only had one bag of IV fluids. I’ve been able to keep your pain level down with my small supply of narcotics, but I’d like to use it sparingly. Blizzards at this time of the year can last for days. I don’t want to run out before we can get a rescue chopper in to pick you up.”

“How did you know my name, Miss Tarth?”

“Brienne, please. How could I not know you, Mr. Lannister? You’ve been in the press often since your first novel was published.”

“Jaime, Brienne. My name is Jaime.”

“All right, Jaime. Give me a minute, and I’ll get some hot water and fresh bandages. I need to change a few of these dressings.”

“And maybe something to drink?” Jaime asked. “I’m parched.”

“Do you think you could keep down some broth if I brought it? I don’t know how long it’s been since you last ate. You must have been on the road awhile if you got all the way here from the Eyrie.”

Jaime looked at her, surprised. “And you knew where I was coming from as well as my name.”

“News goes out through the Vale when Jaime Lannister shows up at the Eyrie. There are tabloids that will pay good money for clues as to when your next epic will go to your publisher, much less any notes you may have jotted down and left behind. Duncan Nightlion and his crew are big business for the Vale.”

Jaime preened as much as a man flat on his back could when he was covered in about ten pounds of faded quilts. “Ah, and I bet you’re my biggest fan.”

Brienne paused in the act of rising from where she had knelt on the floor. “Not even a little bit, Mr. Lannister.”

***

When the … the … the _wench_ who didn’t like his books came back into the room carrying a first aid bag and a travel mug with a straw stuck in the opening, Jaime took issue with her.

“You don’t like my books! My books are great. They are awesome. I’m on the bestseller list for weeks with every one of them.”

“But fewer weeks each time,” the wench said under her breath. 

As Jaime opened his mouth to protest, she stuck the straw in his mouth and ordered, “Drink.”

A warm, flavorful broth flooded Jaime’s taste buds. It was ambrosia. It was the most delicious thing he’d had in months. 

Maybe Jaime was hungrier than he’d realized.

“Can you hold this yourself?” Brienne asked. “NO, not your right hand!” She had already moved to hold Jaime’s right arm in place. “Use you left.”

Jaime raised his left hand to cradle the mug. Bruises blossomed all down the length of his arm. His eyes followed the line to his shoulder, where the imprint of the seatbelt was clear as a diagram in black, blue, and red.

“I’m naked!” Jaime exclaimed, letting the straw drop from his mouth.

Brienne the Wench’s heavenly blue eyes rolled so hard that the color disappeared inside her eye sockets. “Yes, you are. Your clothes were soaked with snow and blood by the time I got you here. It was either strip you down or let you die. I figured you’d prefer your life to your modesty.”

“I suppose I can get something from my suitcase later,” Jaime said as he tried to catch the straw again with his lips.

“Your luggage is with the wreck of your car. I couldn’t get both you and all those bags of yours onto the snowmobile. Again, I figured you’d choose your life over your Louis Vuitton. And we’d have to move you too much getting you dressed. If clothes were possible, I’d have put you in something of mine.”

“You mean you aren’t wearing all your clothes already?” Jaime knew he was acting ungrateful, but feeling foolish had always triggered his defenses.

“You are in the only bed in this cabin, which is piled with most of the blankets, Mr. Lannister. This is also the easiest room to heat. I’m sorry if my efforts to keep myself warm are offending your aesthetic sensibilities, but if I freeze, who’s going to take care of you?”

And with a few sentences, Jaime devolved from lion to bug. “I apologize, Brienne, I didn’t realize you’d given up your bed for me. You’ve been more than genero … Wait, did you leave all my luggage with the car? Even my laptop?”

“Yes, even your laptop!” Brienne had begun removing the medical tape from the bandage on Jaime’s right shoulder and didn’t even glance up at his face when she answered.

“Oh, gods, oh gods. OH, GODS!” Jaime struggled to rise against the pain in his body and the wench’s restraining grasp. “Where are my pants? Tell me you didn’t throw away my pants.”

“Lannister!” she barked at him, “settle down. You’re going to make yourself worse. I still have your pants. They’re in the mudroom where I left them when I stripped you down.”

“Please, please, go get them. Now!” Jaime pleaded.

“If I do, will you stop moving, be quiet, and let me treat you?”

Jaime nodded his head vigorously. “I will. I will, I promise, but please get my pants.”

Jaime’s heart pounded, his head pounded, his injuries throbbed in time with his head and heart while he waited for Brienne to return. As soon as she appeared in his sight, he begged, “Check the front pocket, the front right pocket.”

More eye-rolling from the wench as her large hand disappeared into Jaime’s ruined grey wool trousers and dug around.

“Please, please, please,” Jaime implored the universe under his breath.

“A thumb drive!” Brienne yelled. “You made all that fuss over a thumb drive?”

Jaime dropped the travel mug onto the bed and held out his single working hand. “It has my manuscript on it. If my laptop was damaged in the crash, this is the only copy.”

If the wench’s eyes continued to roll so much, they were going to get stuck at the back of her skull. “You don’t save to the cloud?”

“Cloud drives can be hacked.” The emotion that had colored Jaime’s voice in his panic disappeared.

“Oh. Yeah.” Brienne looked away, a blush coloring her cheeks.

There went any hope Jaime had that the wench had somehow missed the stolen footage of his fiancée participating in a three-way where he was not one of the other two.

The breakup that stuck.

“Ever since then, I haven’t let the drafts of my novels out of my sight. And if I lost this book, it would take me months to recreate it. And it wouldn’t be as good.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“What is your problem with my stories?”

The wench went back to re-bandaging a scrape on Jaime’s shoulder that oozed a bit beneath the forming scab. “I don’t have a problem. They just aren’t to my taste.”

“But whhhhhhhy?” Jaime yawned, worn out by the agitation over his book. He was really tired all of a sudden. Really, really tired.

Jaime looked down at the mug of broth at he had almost finished and at the wench. His eyes narrowed at her, as her shoulder’s crept up level with her ears and her flush deepened.

“Yes, there was some sedative in the cup along with the last of my venison broth. These next bits are going to be painful, Lannister. I can’t take care of your injuries if you’re fighting me.”

“Bittttch.” Jaime slurred as his eyes closed, and he knew nothing more.

***

Jaime dreamed: vivid, detailed dreams very different than his usual “showing up naked at a signing that wasn’t for his book” or “Cersei riding other men’s cocks” dreams.

The twisting road was next to invisible with all the blowing snow. He’d never been in the Mountains of the Moon during this kind of storm, where the snow came down horizontal to the ground. A figure appeared out of nowhere, large, bulky, eyes gleaming in the headlights. Jaime yanked the wheel to avoid whatever it was, and the world spun wildly. He heard a crunch. He felt pain, burning pain in his hand, tearing pain in his leg. 

He blinked, some sticky substance was dripping down his face. He heard a roaring noise, saw a bright light coming towards him.

Was this what had caused him to lose control of the car?

“Don’t worry. I’ve got you,” a panting voice said, as the driver’s side door was wrenched open.

And then there was pain.

He could feel wind blowing across his face. He was strapped tightly to something. He fought whatever was tying him down, but movement brought back the pain.

There was a huffing in his ear as someone wrapped arms around him. He was being lifted. There was a scream.

“Shit! You couldn’t have stayed unconscious for five more minutes. If anyone finds …”

***

It was full dark again when Jaime woke. The moon illuminated the room through the gap in the heavy curtains.

He stayed frozen as he thought about his strange dreams. Or were they memories. What had caused him to go off the road?

It had been big. Like the wench. Its eyes had been bright. Like the wench.

She said everyone in the Vale knew when Jaime Lannister was at the Eyrie. What it …

No, that was crazy, the stuff of horror and Lifetime Channel movies. 

Not that Jaime watched the Lifetime Channel when the wreckage of his romantic life got to be too much.

All people with any measure of fame feared the crazed stalker who would go to unreasonable lengths to obtain and control the object of their obsession. But that wasn’t the wench.

She was a hill country girl who …

Who drugged his food to keep him compliant. And who didn’t have a hill country accent.

Jaime didn’t know what had given his wakefulness away, but he heard her footsteps again.

“How do you know when I wake up?” Things about this didn’t add up. The accident he barely remembered, the way this woman had all these medical supplies ready and waiting, the isolation she seemed to live in. The way she dismissed his writing yet knew so much about him.

The wench drew her head back at the intensity in Jaime’s voice. “The baby monitor. It’s right next to you on the table. This one even has a motion detector. It’s the best one on the market. I bought it for my best friend’s shower next week.”

She had an answer for everything. She was diabolical.

“Are you feeling hungry or thirsty?”

“I don’t know. Are you going to drug me again?”

“Only if I have to change the dressing on your hand again. Even with the sweetsleep, you were hard to control.”

Sweetsleep? But sweetsleep always made Jaime a little bit paranoid.

And suddenly, the diabolical wench was solid, homely Brienne again.

“Sorry,” he said. “Sweetsleep and I don’t do too well together. You might not want to give it to me again.”

“I may have to. I don’t have as much poppymilk as I thought. You needed a lot when I set your leg.”

“But isn’t the storm over. It looks clear out.” Jaime asked, suspicion rearing its head again.

“The snow may be done for now, but it’s still blowing like crazy. Can’t you hear the wind?”

Now that she mentioned it, yes.

“They won’t be able to land a chopper with winds this high. Tomorrow, I hope. Now, do you want anything to eat? I have to go out for a while, so if you don’t speak up now, you’ll have to wait.”

“You’re going out in this? Why the hells would you do that?”

Brienne looked at him for a long, long moment. “It’s my job.” And she pointed to a patch on the sleeve of the thick, woolen shirt that was the top layer of her clothing.

Jaime squinted at it, his swollen eye still making it difficult for him to see clearly. “Westeros Park Service. You’re a park ranger?”

“Of course. Why else would I be out in a blizzard looking for tourists too stupid to know they shouldn’t be driving in those conditions? What? Did you think I was some crazed stalker looking to capture the famous Jaime Lannister and keep him prisoner in my torture cabin of doom?”

“Hahaha. No, of course not.” Maybe she would attribute the weakness of his laugh to his injuries.

“I’ve got to out to try and repair the satellite dish. If I can get it working, we can check in with the hospital, give them a status update and maybe get an ETA on when the weather should clear.”

“Be careful. If anything happens to you out there, gods know what will happen to me in here. But before you go … um …” Jaime gestured vaguely at his lower half.

Brienne frowned for a moment, and then enlightenment dawned. “Oh! Okay, I’ll get … something you can use. Be right back.”

***

Once Brienne stopped giving Jaime sweetsleep, things between them got more comfortable, though handling his physical needs were an embarrassment for them both. The bad weather came back in just after Brienne returned from trying to repair the satellite dish, and they had a brief moment of contact with St. Talisa’s in Darry. The swelling in Jaime’s hand had come down, and he had some mobility in a couple of fingers so that injury might not be as bad as Brienne had first feared.

Without being drugged, though, Jaime began to be bored. And a bored Jaime was an annoying Jaime, according to everyone who knew him. He demanded Brienne’s life story and regaled her with his own. They played cards and board games. They talked politics (her liberal, him more middle of the road), and religion (both agnostics), and every form of entertainment known to man.

Finally, Jaime decided to circle back around to the topic of his books.

“You said they weren’t your cup of tea, but you can almost recite the Moonmaid Chronicles backward. My books aren’t so different from those. Why don’t you like them?” Jaime batted his long, golden eyelashes at the wench as he pulled out his puppy dog pout.

Brienne sighed deeply. “All right. I liked the first three. They were good. You had an interesting cast of characters. Nightlion’s fight against the zealots was interesting. But then you … you killed off my favorite character and turned Duncan into some lapdog for that bitch, Queen Celesta!”

“But, Celesta is his soulmate. They’ve been fated for one another since the beginning of the universe.”

“See, that’s the kind of dumb stuff I hated. Celesta was the one who allowed the zealots to flourish! She’s been leading him around by his dick since they met. You made Duncan too blind and stupid even to notice. And she killed Briony!”

“What? No, she didn’t! It was rogue agents of her government that did that. And they were trying to kill Duncan. Briony sacrificed her life to save her best friend!”

“What a bunch of dumbass, dude-bro horseshit that is. Briony was in love with Duncan. And she was way better for him. With Briony, Duncan wanted to be a better man. With Celesta, all he thinks about is getting into her pants. And even that got boring after a while.”

“NO! You just … you don’t … it’s not … NO!” Jaime spluttered.

“Such an eloquent response. That’s worthy of a dude-bro Reddit thread.”

“How do you even know what happened in the last couple of books? You didn’t read them.”

“But I have friends who did. They’re still hoping you find your creative mojo again and start writing the real Duncan Nightlion again, not this … I don’t know ... neutered Harry Housecat.”

The door slammed behind Brienne as she flounced out of the room.

Jaime was left alone with his thoughts and the itch in his leg where his bone was starting to mend.

It wasn’t true what she said. It wasn’t. Duncan might be a bit obsessed with Celesta, he might bend over backward for her a little too much, but that was because he wanted to keep her love.

But that did sound kind of wussy, now that he put it that way. But they belonged together. And weren’t you supposed to make sacrifices for the one you loved?

Jaime remembered when the idea for the Nightlion series had come to him. He and Cersei had taken a holiday at the Eyrie to celebrate milestones in each of their lives. Jaime’s first top ten bestseller and Cersei’s first Vogue cover. They had been young, beautiful, and in love. The world had been at their feet. Cersei was planning their career trajectories at dinner. She would graduate from modeling to movies. He would move from novels to screenwriting and create characters for her that would win her awards and acclaim. It was at that dinner that he had come up with the idea of Duncan and Celesta.

They had gone back to their suite that night and made love for hours. And as the dawn rose on the new day, Jaime had written the opening pages of Nightlion’s Journey.

Jaime had returned to the Eyrie for every new book ever since, with Cersei at his side until he had to face her infidelity, the ambitions that a novelist boyfriend couldn't fulfill, her cruelty and selfishness that was outgrowing even her astounding beauty.

After the final break up, Jaime would return to the Vale to try and recapture that first magical moment when everything was new and wonderful, and his stories were bursting with potential.

Oh, SHIT! Duncan was him! He’d never let Duncan see Celesta as her true self because some part of him was trying to cling to the illusion of Cersei. No wonder his book sales had been falling off. No wonder fans asked him uncomfortable questions as cons and signings.

Had he written Celesta as the villain of the piece and not even known it?

Cersei had hated the character of Briony. Jaime had killed her off to please his lover. It was after reading those pages that Cersei had finally agreed to marry him.

Celesta had killed Briony! Just not in the way Brienne thought.

This … This was awful. The new book, the book he’d struggled with and worked so hard on for the last few months, was due in six weeks. If he didn’t deliver, he’d lose his prime slot in his publisher’s Fall lineup. 

But gods, now he realized why the last books had been so difficult. It was because they … they weren’t good.

It was just as well that Brienne had gone out. He needed to think. 

Jaime picked up the pad that he and Brienne had used to keep score while they played gin, turned to an empty page, and picked up a pen awkwardly in his left hand.

_Briony woke up in the resurrection pod._

He’d turn it into compelling prose later. Now he needed to fix how he'd fucked up his life's work.

***

Jaime had spent eight weeks in the hospital and a rehab center in Darry. His recovery regimen had eaten into his writing time significantly. But unless he was with a doctor or a therapist, he was writing. He only stopped to eat, sleep, and to visit with Brienne when she came down the mountain to see him. That wasn’t as often as he would have liked. He had tried calling her a couple of times, but talking on a crackly phone connection wasn’t the same as seeing the expression in her eyes, and watching for the rare smiles and frequent blushes on her face.

As soon as he was out of surgery to fix the broken leg that wasn’t healing quite to the satisfaction of the Vale’s top orthopedist, Jaime had been in touch with his agent to explain about the accident. That both his laptop and his thumb drive were damaged beyond repair in the brutal conditions of the blizzard, and every word of the latest Nightlion novel had been lost. But not to despair, he would be able to recreate much of it and even had ideas for improving it.

Also, he’d be staying in the Vale a while longer.

He left that steaming pile of bullshit for Olenna to sell to his publisher and made his plans.

Winter had given up its grip on the Vale after the blizzard that had brought Jaime’s car to grief and his life to improvement. The Mountains of the Moon National Park was open, but the crowds would not arrive until the high summer. That meant there was any number of cabins available for long-term rental.

Jaime would not return to the Eyrie for this book. The luxurious resort was his past. His future lay in a cozy cabin on a mountainside, very near to a certain wench, who might be his future, too.


End file.
